Who's succeeding right now? Try Chiropractors, Ink-Cartridge Recyclers, & Disaster Recovery Specialists

While it's not the greatest time to be a real estate lender, I'm encountering bright spots during my "non-virtual" (face-to-face) social networking, Last Monday was the monthly meeting of the Woodstock Community Business Association. The chiropractor who started the group made numerous comments about how busy his practice has become.  While it's entirely possible that the bone doc was simply being positive for the benefit of the rest of us who were there because our fiscal survival depends on cultivating referrals, I got the impression that he really is as busy as a one-armed paper hanger.

Another social networking group has given me the chance to befriend a guy who left "corporate America" in late 2007 to buy into a franchise that recycles printer cartridges. He told me 2 weeks ago that his YE 2008 gross sales are up 110% over YE 2007. Though the cynical (pragmatic) banker in me growls & whispers, "That's great, my friend, but a dollar + a dollar = 100% revenue growth", I'll take good news wherever I can get it, and by golly I'm also gonna pass it on!

The third bright spot in our local north Metro Atlanta economy is Disaster Recovery. These are the folks who are hired by a Property & Casualty insurance company when an insured home or business suffers fire, water, storm, or crime scene damage. The industry is relatively young and is still developing such standards as preventing conflicts of interest by requiring iniitial assessment & mitigation to be performed by a company that doesn't generate cash flow from re-construction.  In any case, business is booming.

Did I mention that Social Networking's getting really popular?